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I was chatting about which DD to use for the upcoming CB season, in our minds it was a obvious choice (Gearing). That got me to thinking how disappointing that was, there's no other DD's that are consistently relevant - how stale and boring is that with all the T10 DD's we have! With the current volume/range of radar ships; spotting and torping whilst staying out of radar range is critical, running and gunning is fun in randoms but CB's it's more punishable. Gearing has everything; the guns kill off most other DD's, the torp range is amazingly good (I think OP) so useful to be able to put damage down with minimal risk, it out spots most DD's (with legendary mod) and the smoke is fantastic. That got me to thinking about the current DD balance in general and what the other ships had to do to become more relevant/balanced:
Gearing - torp range to 15km, remove detection buff from legendary mod.
Yueyang - it's firepower was nerfed recently, so I guess it's a torp boat is now WG? - I love this ship but it's just not relevant in the current meta = can't outgun most DD's, deep water torps can't hit DD's either, 13.5k torp range puts you too close to long range radar, the radar on the YY is only occasionally useful because there's usually 3-4 radars on the other team keeping your well away. Increasing the torp range to 15km would make it a better prospect in CB and randoms.
Haru - it's a beast in randoms but I've only just unlocked this ship, not sure if it'd do well in CB (has anyone tried it?). My gut tells me it's not as useful in CB but having played against them in randoms I consider them too powerful - here's what I'd do to balance them - Increase on detection radius (6.2 for a gun boat is way too low) maybe 6.6km, remove torp re-loader (it's a gun boat - the torps should be weaker to balance - 1 rack is fine).
Shim - the poor old Shim, a torp boat that actually has poor-average torps. This ship should be excellent for CB but it's not - 20km torps way too slow and viable, 12km torps not far reaching enough (why are the Gearing's torps so much better?). If the Shim is a torp specific boat then they should be balanced that way. Shim needs - torps range buff to 16.5k with the same speed 12km torps.
Z-52 - not sure if it's me but out of all the DD's I very rarely see this boat in randoms or CB. The torps re-load super fast but the range in the current radar meta means it's kind of underwhelming at everything. What is it's specialization/niche? It would be great as a hard hitting, quick-loading short range torp boat but the give up of 0.4km for the legendary mod is too much. It's outspotted by the Haru with the legendary mod on, wth! Needs some love - my opinion is this line should be turned into a stealth line of DD's (British DD's started like that but turned something else) - turn this line into a stealth build - 5.5km detection on Z-52.
Daring - I like how agile it is, the single torp launchers can be very useful and the guns are super fun to use. But I'm not sure what this ship-line is supposed to be? Is it like a peek-a-boo ship? Pops up to fire, cause some chaos then smokes up and moves on? Not sure what I'd do with it TBH
Groz - I like the Groz. I think it's actually quite balanced and has it's place in randoms again with it's AA build. I've used the Groz it a few times in CB to mixed success. For me the Russian DD's are better suited to randoms and that's OK. I'm not going to mention the Khab - it's a troll ship so no point.
What do you guys think?

At it's current state, Hakuryu is very underpowered compared to Midway and the 0.8.0 version. It was hit too hard with nerfs, and while it did need a nerf because of how easily people could get nearly 500,000 damage in it, it did not need all of those nerfs combined.
The flooding chance nerf and the removal of the F key spam thing would have been enough, but the aiming change made the ship unplayable. But it could still be made great again with some changes.
1. Restore the old aiming before 0.8.1
The current one is slow, wide, takes forever to get on target, and does not keep up with a normal attack run. The one before it was much better, and just changing this would improve the ship so much.
2. Discourage Torpedo Spam by making all 3 plane types viable
One thing that makes Midway so great is that when fully upgraded all 3 of the plane types can be effective. 0.8.0 Hakuryu had very powerful torpedo bombers, but then the AP dive bombers and the rocket planes were much weaker and not very fun to play. Giving the Hakuryu some good rockets and bombs like the Midway would mean a lot less torpedo spam. But the torpedoes would still be a powerful plane, just not the one the carrier should solely rely on.
3. One that is already in the game, the F spam nerf and the improved AA
With the changes listed above added to the current version, Hakuryu would be just as if not more powerful than Midway, but not so that it is unbalanced. The super strong AA that currently exists after the hotfixes and the large number of strong AA ships in the matchmaking means that it would not perform as high as it did in 0.8.0, but still pretty high. 300-400 thousand damage matches would be a possibility if the player is really skilled, maybe even a very small chance of breaking 500,000 again.
So in conclusion, Hakuryu needs buffs and the ones in this article should be able to make it powerful again without making it unbalanced. Keep in mind that it is not unheard of for surface ships to occasionally get 300-400k games, and since aircraft carriers were historically the most powerful ship class, why shouldn't they have higher chances of performing so high?

This has bothered me for a while, but it took a long time for me to be comfortable sharing my views.
In my opinion, giving higher tiered ships access to more Upgrade Slots breaks balance in the current -/+2 matchmaking. High-tier ships already have a massive advantage compared to lower tiers, and this is only exacerbated by having access to more upgrade slots.
For example, let's look at IJN Mogami vs. Zao and Upgrade Slot 6. Mogami has 10 guns that fire at a maximum range of 15.7km; Zao has a maximum range of 16.2km stock with 12 guns... plus access to Gun Fire Control System Mod 2, which makes 18.792km. That's a full 3km difference on a ship with more guns, health, and a heal, yet Mogami gets thrown into T10 games more often than not thanks to T8's notoriously poor matchmaking. This makes my Mogami and Atago significantly less fun than they have any right to be and is the main reason I hate playing Tier 8 more than any other tier.
Note: I am aware that Ibuki has access to Mod Slot 6, but a single tier of stats isn't enough to break balance even with access to the extra mod. Not nearly as much as being uptiered twice and then suffering from a mod disadvantage, at least.
For the most part, I've adopted the cynical view of "Eh, that's just how it is," but since everyone seems to be complaining about something or another, I figure I'd throw another drop into the sea of balance whining.

Let's start with a fun little example down here: https://replayswows.com/replay/24818#stats
"Starting from 6:50 till 6:00,
watch this perfect example of how evenly matched our good old Dm. Donskoi is versus the new addition of same tier free xp premium, the Kronstadt. "
Screenshot 1-3:
Kronstadt greeted with warm citadel hits;
Kronstadt sips torp shot;
Kronstadts rams into the arms of our Donskoi without even using a ramming signal flag!
---
Back to serious suggestions,
here are our free xp premiums:
--Stage 1: stronger than same tier silver ships:
Missouri - slightly better than a Tier 9 ship Iowa, mainly in the form of radar, plus minor frontal bulkhead / AA
Nelson - arguably the strongest T7 BB with a combination of super heal, turret setup & firepower, HE; but also with massive citadel weakness and slow speed
So far they seem pretty okay - they are still perfectly beatable, Iowa doesn't fall behind by much beyond catching people with radar, and Nelson deletion is not rare for same to higher tiers.
---Stage 2: slightly tuned-down +1 tier silver ship:
Musashi - Yamato with just slightly worse accuracy, same reload, almost identical armor and HP. Musashi got almost no AA, though a Yamato without heavy AA spec won't feel the difference either.
Now I happen to be grinding the IJN silver T9, the Izumo, and well... when Musashi got a lot more HP, a lot more armor against HE spamming, and on top of that, really scary guns for anyone that makes 1v1 dual pretty much suicidal...
okay sure, WG needs to make profit, and I'll happily pay to skip to T10 Yamato - which is indeed superior after all.
So the question comes back - why free xp the Musashi when you can just free xp into Yamato at even lower cost?
T9 still faces T10 all day long, and for those rare cases against T7, yeah.. pretty disgusting, but mainly so for T8+. 460mm is not a necessity for overmatching 25mm bow/stern on T7 bbs.
Clearly, WG realized this problem, so here's the fix:
--Stage 3: T9 (and potentially T10) premiums, that are arguably the best in the entire game, regardless of tier
Now Kronstadt is just a fantastic start - we got guns that can now overmatch RN cruisers, citadel punish bbs better than the Moskva, punish cruisers even harder across the map, and, in the meanwhile, has better HP and a much lower citadel and pretty good concealment compared to Moskva.
And this is not even like the Black or Flint that are very exclusively rewarded to loyal and experience players, these are just plain buyable not far from day 1 if one so wishes. 750k free xp isn't a long grind with budget apart. In fact, our Black veterans would likely suffer the power creep as well, since their carrying potential in a Black could be very well countered by simply a decent Kronstadt player. And let us not go into the frustration when these veterans happen to pick a silver or inferior premium and got widely overwhelmed not by the skill gap but simple what they choose to bring...
Sure, the ship would sell really well and it probably does, but is there no hidden cost to this? For example, once people realize that these ships instead of the silver T10s are the real king, would they keep grinding the silver lines over and over again, boosting the popularity of the game and community, or would they throw all the silver lines, old and new, out of the window, unless they are comparably OP as the free xp premiums? What about the credits that WG could sell or use as incentive for players to keep grinding and buying moneymaking premiums? What about the captain re-training and re-specing? What about the frenzy upon every new line? What about future premiums, by cash or free xp, shall we make them even more OP like increasing the dosage of vodka, or kinda balanced - or underpowered in the eyes of many, risking the sale numbers?
So, how about some braking pedals on the vodka-infused OP premiums and the poor peasants that feel much less satisfied or even rage quit, and some efforts into re-balancing the latest premiums, guaranteed by the choice to either return the ship and get the free xp back, or keep the ship and take some credits for compensation. Guess where those resources would flow into? Silver line grinding, and the habit to focus on every new line that comes out. And at least for me, that's the main reason why I purchase all the premium time, the grinding camos, the signals, the captains, as well as staying loyal and active all the way. Premiums are cheap, players buy them, and they dump them, unless they once again need to grind for credits to feed the new silver lines.
Silver lines might actually mean a lot more for the healthy status of the gaming community, as well as for we the players, our willingness to stay engaged and contribute time and purchases for the game. Plz don't once again take the golden standards away from silver ships, and infest the game with OP ships all the way till Tier X, for some very short term profits.